SULAIMANI (ESTA) — A senior security delegation led by Iraq’s top national security adviser Qasim al-Araji arrived in Erbil on Monday.
Araji’s visit aims to follow up on the latest steps and implementation of the Iran-Iraq security pact, which stresses tightening the two countries’ border security and disarming the Kurdish-Iranian opposition groups based in the Kurdistan Region.
Iraq and Iran signed a border security agreement last March aimed primarily at tightening the frontier with the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, where Tehran says armed Kurdish dissidents pose a threat to its security.
The frontier came into renewed focus last year when Iran’s Revolutionary Guards launched missile and drone attacks against Iranian Kurdish groups based in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, accusing them of fomenting protests that were sparked by the death of a Iranian Kurdish woman while she was being held in police custody.
Iran has also accused Kurdish militants of working with its arch-enemy Israel and has often voices concern over the alleged presence of the Israeli spy agency Mossad in the Region.
Teheran set Sep.19 this year as a deadline for the Iraqi and Kurdish authorities to disarm armed Kurdish dissident groups, threatening to launch a military attack against them if the deadline did not meet the demand.
